Day of the Dead: Pan de Muerto Recipe

With a little lots of help from Nestlé, I made this wonderful Day of the Dead Bread, the recipe is seriously easy, it even has one of my favorite ingredients: Sweetened Condensed Milk.

At the Día de Los Muertos event they divided us into 2 groups, one to make the bread and the other to make the crafts, and then we switched. For the bread, we went into the kitchen and each of us had our stations prepared with the ingredients to made it step-by-step, we all made one pan de Muerto to take home. I took photos of the steps (scroll down for the pictures) so I can show you here how easy it is to make,

I’m really excited about this, it’s easy!! By the way, did you know why the bread has the particular shape? The decorations are supposed to resemble bones and the ball on top is the skull, In my bread, I purposely made it a skull shape, but you don’t usually see it like that at the stores 😉

If you make it, keep in mind that you have to let rest the dough for about one hour so it rises, you’ll love it, has a delicious taste of anise seeds and when it’s warm it’s so yummy!

Pan de Muerto Bread

(Nestlé recipe)

Ingredients:

1/2 packet (3.5 g) active-dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water (100-110˚ F)

1/4 cup NESTLÉ LA LECHERA Sweetened Condensed Milk

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon anise seeds

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided

1 egg yolk, beaten with 2 teaspoons water

1 tablespoons granulated sugar

Directions:

Stir yeast and warm water in a large glass bowl; allow to rest 10 minutes. Heat La Lechera and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until butter is melted. Add anise seeds, salt and La Lechera mixture to yeast mixture and stir to combine.

Add eggs and 1 cup flour and mix well with a wooden spoon. Continue adding remaining flour, cup by cup, stirring well until dough comes together. Knead dough gently for about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky. Place in large greased bowl. Cover with greased plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Punch dough down. Cut 3 small (about 1 tablespoonful) balls from the loaf. Roll out 2 dough balls to form the “bones”. Shape the larger dough into a round loaf. Gently press the bones on top of the loaf crossing each other to make an “X”. Roll the remaining small dough ball to form the “skull”. Put the skull in the middle of the “X” and gently press down. Place loaf on the prepared baking sheet and allow to rise in warm place for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350º F. Brush top of loaf with egg wash.

Bake for 20 minutes; remove loaf from oven and brush again with egg wash and sprinkle with the granulated sugar. Return to oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Serve warm or cool completely. Best eaten the same day prepared.

Disclosure: This is not a paid post. Nestlé invited me to spend a day celebrating the Day of the Dead and included cooking the bread. All opinions, ideas and stories are 100% my own.